{"id":414,"date":"2019-06-12T19:05:11","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T23:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/?p=414"},"modified":"2019-07-12T07:46:22","modified_gmt":"2019-07-12T11:46:22","slug":"common-notion-confusion-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/2019\/06\/12\/common-notion-confusion-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware Greeks Bearing Gifts:\u00a0 Part 2 of a Review of J.V. Fesko\u2019s Reforming Apologetics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/strong>So what exactly is Van Til\u2019s beef with Aquinas?\u00a0 First, there is the issue of Aquinas\u2019s claims about Aristotle contradicting the biblical teaching about man\u2019s depravity.\u00a0\u00a0 That a pagan like Aristotle, who, according to the Bible, hates God, suppresses natural revelation about God, and worships idols rather than the true God (Rom. 1:18-32, 8:7; Col. 1:21; Eph. 4:18), would develop and promote a rigorous proof of the existence of the true God is something that should be unexpected, if not completely ruled out of the realm of possibility.\u00a0 Second, Van Til argues that when Aristotle\u2019s philosophy is closely examined, along with Aquinas\u2019s use of that philosophy, we find teachings that are anti-Christian concerning the nature of God and the general nature of reality.\u00a0 To explain this, let\u2019s start with a statement by Aquinas on the issue:\u00a0 \u201cBut there are some truths which the natural reason also is able to reach. Such are that God exists, that He is one, and the like. In fact, such truths about God have been proved demonstratively by the philosophers, guided by the light of the natural reason.\u201d[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til argues that the oneness of God as conceived by Aristotle logically excludes the Christian God.\u00a0 Aquinas has taken a superficial similarity between the oneness of Aristotle\u2019s Unmoved Mover and the oneness of the biblical God and has failed to realize the contradiction between how each approach understands that oneness.<\/p>\n

The Greek view of reality was based on a tension between the One (unity, stasis, being) and the Many (diversity, change, matter).\u00a0 Heraclitus claimed that unity is an illusion and affirmed that reality is all change.\u00a0 As Plato reported, Heraclitus said that \u201ceverything flows, nothing stands still.\u201d\u00a0 As his view is often expressed, although this is not an exact quote, \u201cIt is not possible for a man to step into the same river twice, because it is not the same river and not the same man.\u201d\u00a0 Parmenides claimed in his poem \u201cOn Nature\u201d that diversity is an illusion and affirmed that all reality is one:\u00a0 \u201cwhat is, is uncreated and indestructible, alone, complete, immovable and without end.\u201d\u00a0 Although Aristotle\u2019s emphasis was more on diversity and Plato\u2019s emphasis was more on unity, both Aristotle and Plato tried to accommodate the views of Heraclitus and Parmenides by saying that matter derives from non-being and is the source of diversity, and Being is the source of unity, and between non-being and Being is the realm of Becoming, where matter and Being combine, where humans live.\u00a0 This view of reality is often referred to as the Great Chain of Being.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

Trying to work Christianity into the Greek view would mean that the unity of Parmenides is equated with God.\u00a0 But that whole Greek scheme of reality is contrary to the biblical view of God and creation.\u00a0 The unity of God in terms of the Greek view of reality is a blank unity.\u00a0 Van Til says, \u201cIf there is unity it must then be sought by the process of abstraction from an ultimately existing plurality.\u00a0 Such a unity will be an empty and lifeless unity.\u00a0 It is such a unity as we find in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle.\u00a0 Aristotle\u2019s \u2018God\u2019 is a principle, not a person.\u201d[3]<\/a>\u00a0 The biblical God is triune, not a blank unity abstracted from all diversity. \u00a0In contrast with the Greek view and other non-Christian views of reality, Van Til describes the biblical nature of God as \u201cthe ontological Trinity,\u201d the \u201cconcrete universal,\u201d in which \u201cthe one and the many are equally ultimate.\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0 The persons of the Trinity are not three separate gods, so that the many is more ultimate than unity, nor are the three persons merely nominal distinctions in God, so that God\u2019s unity excludes plurality.\u00a0 The biblical God is the source of both matter and the universal concepts that apply to matter.\u00a0 Matter does not arise from non-being.\u00a0 Aristotle\u2019s Unmoved Mover did not create the world; it does not even know the world.\u00a0 As Van Til puts it, \u201cAristotle\u2019s god [is] a god who did not create the world, who does not know the world, who does not know \u2018himself\u2019 because \u2018he\u2019 is no self. \u2018He\u2019 is an \u2018it,\u2019 an abstract principle of all-absorbing rationality.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til says about the Greek view of unity and Rome\u2019s appeal to it:<\/p>\n

God is one God, that is, God is one god so long as he, or it, is thought of as an abstract principle of unity which stands correlatively over against an equally abstract world of pure potentiality. The God of natural theology, therefore, is both unknown and unknowable by man so long as he differs from man. Moreover, this God is unknown and unknowable to himself because he is no self.\u00a0 This is the kind of god that comes out of Rome\u2019s natural theology.[6]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The problem that Van Til has with Aquinas is not, contrary to John Frame, that Aquinas proved too few of the attributes of God to consider that god to be the biblical God.[7]<\/a>\u00a0 The problem is that the Thomistic appeal to the Greek view of the One and the Many excludes<\/em> the Christian God.\u00a0 Aristotle\u2019s Unmoved Mover maintains its unity only if all diversity is excluded from it.\u00a0 As Van Til puts it, \u201cThe one God of Aristotle retains its oneness only if kept in abstraction from the world.\u201d[8]<\/a>\u00a0 The Unmoved Mover could never be Triune. \u00a0The problem is not, contrary to Aquinas, that creation with a beginning is a logical possibility along with an eternal material world, so that it is not against reason but above reason to believe in a beginning to creation.\u00a0 Rather, the problem is that the Aquinas\u2019s use of Aristotle excludes<\/em> creation with a beginning.\u00a0 An impersonal, abstract principle of unity could not decide to create a world of matter.\u00a0 It could not cause anything.[9]<\/a>\u00a0 The abstraction can have no thoughts with content.\u00a0 It is a pure, unchanging emptiness \u2013 a blank.\u00a0 For matter to exist in terms of the Greek Form-Matter scheme of reality, matter can only have independent and eternal existence.<\/p>\n

Does Fesko refute any of this?\u00a0 No, he never even addresses these arguments.\u00a0 He is unaware of Van Til\u2019s real arguments against Aquinas.\u00a0 He thinks that Van Til\u2019s problem is simply that Christians should never borrow ideas from non-Christians.\u00a0 Van Til\u2019s real position is the more reasonable one that Christians should not borrow anti-Christian<\/em> ideas from non-Christians.\u00a0 \u00a0Van Til has no problem with Christians borrowing good ideas from Aristotle or any other pagan:<\/p>\n

It should be carefully noted that our criticism of this procedure does not imply that we hold it to be wrong for the Christian church to make formal use of the categories of thought discovered by Aristotle or any other\u00a0 thinker.\u00a0 On the contrary, we believe that in the Providence of God, Aristotle was raised up of God so that he might serve the church of God by laying at its feet the measures of his brilliant intellect.\u00a0 When Solomon built the temple of God he was instructed to make use of the peculiar skill and the peculiar gifts of the pagan nation that was his neighbor.[10]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On a couple of pages Fesko references Van Til\u2019s criticisms of Aquinas in A Christian Theory of Knowledge<\/em>.\u00a0 He mentions Van Til\u2019s criticism of Aquinas on the issue of remotion (88), and he accurately summarizes Van Til\u2019s criticism of Aquinas as, \u201che combines pagan Greek philosophy with his Christian theology, although they are ultimately incompatible\u201d (89).\u00a0 But then Fesko gets wrong why<\/em> Van Til thought that the two are incompatible.\u00a0 It\u2019s not because Van Til denies that God can be known through reason.\u00a0 Fesko says that Van Til rejects remotion because \u201cthis method does not account for the \u2018self-attesting Christ speaking in the Scriptures.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 As I\u2019ll discuss in more depth in the next post, Fesko mistakenly thinks that Van Til means by this phrase that all knowledge comes from Scripture (216-18).\u00a0 Consequently, Fesko interprets this phrase to be Van Til\u2019s rejection of the claim that \u201csome truths about God can be known by reason\u201d (89).\u00a0 Looking at the quote from Van Til in the immediate context should dispel that notion.\u00a0\u00a0 The full quote is, \u201cOn a Protestant basis the way of remotion or negation cannot be applied at all unless there first be a positive identification of God by himself.\u00a0 Since men are sinners this positive way of identification must be by way of the self-attesting Christ speaking in the Scriptures.\u201d[11]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til is saying that, since sinners suppress the knowledge of God through nature (which includes, Van Til believes, knowledge of positive attributes of God), the Scriptures are necessary to clarify who God is in his positive attributes.\u00a0 I provided numerous quotes in the last post showing that Van Til affirms natural revelation.\u00a0 Here is one more:\u00a0 \u201cNatural revelation is perfectly clear. Men ought<\/em> from it to know God and ought through it to see all other things as dependent on God. \u00a0But only he who looks at nature through the mirror of Scripture does<\/em> understand natural revelation for what it is.\u201d[12]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til talks negatively about \u201cnatural reason\u201d in his discussion of Aquinas, but he is talking about Aquinas adopting the ideas of the unregenerate that are expressions of their rebellion against God, as in \u201cthe natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him\u201d (1 Cor. 2:14, NKJV). \u00a0\u00a0Van Til is not condemning reason applied to nature in a proper way.\u00a0 Fesko quotes Aquinas quoting Scripture to support the position that God can be known through reasoning about His creation, complaining that Van Til did not adequately interact with Aquinas\u2019s text because he doesn\u2019t pay attention to Aquinas quoting Scripture that supports knowing God through reasoning about His creation:\u00a0 \u201cAquinas believes reason can discover God because the Bible says so\u201d (90).\u00a0 That\u2019s all well and good, but according to Van Til, the problem is that Aquinas adopts unbiblical concepts in his reasoning about God.\u00a0 Aquinas appealed to elements of Aristotle\u2019s philosophy that exclude<\/em> the Creator revealed in the Bible and also revealed by proper reasoning about God\u2019s creation.<\/p>\n

When Fesko concludes that \u201cAquinas believes that reason can discover God because the Bible says so\u201d (90), Fesko cites a page from Van Til\u2019s book The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em> as proof that Van Til denied that Aquinas relied on the authority of Scripture.[13]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til\u2019s point on this page is not<\/em> that Aquinas rejects citing the Bible to prove claims (Aquinas does that all the time; nobody could miss that), but that Aquinas held to a theory of knowledge that is inconsistent with the necessity and authority of Scripture.\u00a0 Van Til\u2019s position is not that Aquinas rejected everything Christian in favor of Aristotle, but that he was double-minded.\u00a0 As Van Til puts it later in the same book, Thomas, the theologian, wants to defend the Triune Creator who communicates through an infallible Bible, while \u201cThomas, the philosopher\u201d wants to view God and man in terms of the Greek scale of being, with an Unmoved Mover who does not know the world and could not communicate with the world.[14]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til criticizes Aquinas\u2019s empiricist theory of knowledge on the page that Fesko cites because it yields a vague, uncertain knowledge of God that is contrary to the inescapable, certain, and clear knowledge of God coming through nature that Paul teaches in Romans 1.\u00a0 If Fesko wants to defend Aquinas against Van Til, he needs to defend Aquinas\u2019s version of empiricism, but Fesko does not engage that issue.<\/p>\n

Looking more closely at Van Til\u2019s real issue with remotion that Fesko never discusses, Van Til argues that Aquinas\u2019s appeal to remotion is an appeal to the Greek form-matter scheme:<\/p>\n

The natural-supernatural theology of Roman Catholicism is the result of an attempt to fit the Christian framework of God-in-Christ and his relation to the world into the form-matter scheme of Aristotle. The transcendent God of the natural theology of Thomas Aquinas is attained by the method of remotion and is therefore relegated to the realm of the indeterminate.[15]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here is how Aquinas himself describes the process of remotion:\u00a0 \u201cNow, in considering the divine substance, we should especially make use of the method of remotion. \u00a0For, by its immensity, the divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect reaches. Thus we are unable to apprehend it by knowing what it is.\u201d[16]<\/a> By remotion, Aquinas says that \u201cwe approach nearer to a knowledge of God according as through our intellect we are able to remove more and more things from Him.\u201d[17]<\/a>\u00a0 In other words, we take features of the natural world that our intellect is able to grasp, and subtract any positive attributes.\u00a0 It should be obvious that this leaves us with God as an empty concept.\u00a0 As Aquinas puts it, by this method we cannot<\/em> know \u201cwhat it [God] is,\u201d only that God is.\u00a0 But the \u201cthat\u201d \u2013 the concept of God \u2013 is empty.\u00a0 Christians commonly use many descriptions of God that are negations of aspects of the material world like immortal (not mortal), invisible (not visible), and infinite (not finite).\u00a0 But if all we have is negation and nothing positive about who God is, then \u201cGod\u201d is an empty concept, and that\u2019s what the method of remotion gives us.\u00a0 If we negate the attribute of the natural world that it is existent, then we have non-existent.\u00a0 And if we negate the attribute of the natural world that has force, then we have powerless.\u00a0 But the God of the Bible is not non-existent and powerless.\u00a0 As some philosophers have pointed out, if Being is an empty abstraction, then Being is equivalent to non-being.[18]<\/a>\u00a0 That\u2019s what Greek categories give us in regard to the nature of God.<\/p>\n

This method of knowing God is put in language even more clearly part of the Greek form-matter scheme in this passage from Aquinas:\u00a0 \u201cGod is a supremely simple form, as was shown above (Question [3], Article [7]). . . .Reason cannot reach up to simple form, so as to know \u2018what it is;\u2019 but it can know \u2018whether it is.\u2019\u201d[19]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til is quick to point out that it is incoherent to claim that something exists without being able to say what it is.[20]<\/a>\u00a0 Aquinas\u2019s method does not allow us to hold the position that reason tells us that God exists but special revelation tells us the content to God\u2019s nature, because his method of appealing to reason only arrives at the concept of God by stripping any content from his nature.\u00a0 God would not be the \u201csupremely simple form\u201d of Greek philosophy if He had any definite content to His nature.<\/p>\n

Adopting the Greek form-matter scheme not only undermines the argument for God\u2019s existence that He is the cause of motion in the material world.\u00a0 It undermines every area of Christian theology when consistently applied.\u00a0 As I explain in another essay, Van Til argues that Aristotle\u2019s worldview undermines Christian doctrine in these key areas:[21]<\/a><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The Creator\/creature distinction.<\/li>\n
  2. A beginning to creation.<\/li>\n
  3. Mankind\u2019s fall from a state of perfection.<\/li>\n
  4. Salvation at a point in history.<\/li>\n
  5. The incarnation of Jesus as fully God and fully man.<\/li>\n
  6. A finished revelation from God.<\/li>\n
  7. Absolute ethical obligations.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Fesko acknowledges that Aquinas committed errors in his distinction between nature and grace with his appeal to a pre-Fall donum superadditum<\/em> (superadded grace) (176-77).\u00a0 Fesko, however, does not show awareness that Van Til argues that these errors are related to the form-matter scheme that Aquinas adopts from Greek philosophy.\u00a0 Here is one example of Van Til\u2019s statement on the issue:<\/p>\n

    Sin is what it is precisely because it is a negative ethical reaction to God\u2019s inescapable presence<\/em>.\u00a0 Sin is not due to some\u00a0slenderness of being, to some nearness to non-being, to some lack of supernatural grace; it is direct rejection of the known will of God. The sinner is a sinner by virtue of the suppression of the revelation of God within him. Only thus can the Protestant doctrine of sin as ethical alienation from his Creator rather than physical defect be maintained. Only thus can the fact that Christianity is ethical in character, rather than a means by which men are lifted up to a higher place in the scale of being, be maintained.[22]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Aquinas says that \u201cin the state of perfect nature man needs a gratuitous strength superadded to natural strength for one reason, viz. in order to do and wish supernatural good.\u201d[23]<\/a>\u00a0 This superadded grace was necessary for man\u2019s higher faculties to control his lower, sensual faculties:\u00a0 \u201cThis is clear also from the very rectitude of the primitive state, by virtue of which, while the soul remained subject to God, the lower faculties in man were subject to the higher, and were no impediment to their action.\u201d[24]<\/a>\u00a0 But why did Adam need superadded grace in order for him make choices to obey God?\u00a0 What was deficient in Adam\u2019s will as created from the hand of God, before the Fall? \u00a0Did not God make everything very good?\u00a0 Answer:\u00a0 Aquinas sees Adam\u2019s nature as deficient to live in obedience to God before the Fall because Aquinas tries to fit Christian morality into the alien scheme of the Greek scale of being.\u00a0 As Van Til points out (even quoting the passage),[25]<\/a> Aquinas defines sin as a lack of being, as demanded by the Greek scheme of reality:<\/p>\n

    Every being, as being, is good. . . .\u00a0 No being can be spoken of as evil, formally as being, but only so far as it lacks being. . . .\u00a0 As primary matter has only potential being, so it is only potentially good. \u00a0Although, according to the Platonists, primary matter may be said to be a non-being on account of the privation attaching to it, nevertheless, it does participate to a certain extent in goodness, viz. by its relation to, or aptitude for, goodness.[26]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Adam was a finite being, a mixture of non-being and Being.\u00a0 If sin is a lack of being, then Adam was sinful merely because he was finite, which he was at the moment of his creation.\u00a0 To get around this obviously anti-biblical position of Adam being sinful before the Fall, Aquinas had to add something to Adam beyond his created nature, and that something is the donum superadditum<\/em>.\u00a0 But this does not really solve the problem; it\u2019s a fa\u00e7ade to hide the problem.\u00a0 As Van Til argues, the problem is Aquinas trying to make an ethical issue into a metaphysical issue in order to integrate Greek categories into the biblical worldview.\u00a0 Aquinas redefines the ethical contrast between good and evil as a metaphysical contrast between the natural and the supernatural.\u00a0 In terms of the Greek chain of being, redemption is a matter of the supernatural elevating the natural.\u00a0 \u201cGrace\u201d comes to be understood as an infusion<\/em> of a higher order of being.\u00a0 With the biblical view, grace is ethical restoration.\u00a0 Grace is an imputation<\/em> of righteousness.\u00a0 With the Greek view, redemption is a metaphysical issue; with the biblical view, redemption is a forensic, ethical issue.\u00a0 Taken to its fullest, logically consistent extent, salvation as a process of rising up the scale of being cannot be achieved by a finite creature at a particular point in history.\u00a0 Salvation is not fully realized until man becomes God, who alone is pure Being.<\/p>\n

    One last claim to address more fully is Fesko\u2019s criticism that Van Til did not cite Aquinas\u2019s work very often when he criticizes Aquinas, repeating John Frame\u2019s criticism: \u00a0\u201cPart of the problem of Van Til\u2019s critique of Aquinas is the rarity of citation of primary sources\u201d (88).[27]<\/a>\u00a0 If Fesko wanted to offer a responsible critique of Van Til\u2019s criticisms of Aquinas, he could have spent a least a chapter quoting passages where Van Til quotes or cites Aquinas, and then giving a critique of how accurately Van Til has interpreted Aquinas.\u00a0 I look forward to reading such a book or lengthy article in the future.\u00a0 No Thomist has produced one yet.\u00a0 Neither have \u201csympathetic\u201d critics of Van Til on his treatment of Aquinas such as John Frame.\u00a0 Fesko quotes only one passage where Van Til cites Aquinas.\u00a0 This is the one on the issue of remotion that I dealt with above.\u00a0 Fesko claims that Van Til \u201cdraws inaccurate conclusions\u201d (88) from the passage by Aquinas.\u00a0 But as I argued above, it is Fesko who does not realize what Aquinas is talking about in the passage, nor does Fesko understand what Van Til is criticizing Aquinas about.\u00a0 Therefore whatever benefits readers would derive from Van Til citing Aquinas\u2019s primary work more often, it would not prevent seminary professors who critique Van Til from being clueless interpreters of Van Til\u2019s writings.\u00a0 If Fesko had at least understood the criticism that Van Til is making of Aquinas regarding remotion, he could have made arguments and cited supporting authority on the issue of whether Van Til had understood Aquinas correctly.\u00a0 That would have advanced the discussion.<\/p>\n

    It is not unreasonable to say that it would have been more helpful if Van Til had cited Aquinas\u2019s writings more often, but the more important question is whether Van Til\u2019s statements about Aquinas\u2019s views are accurate. \u00a0\u00a0Citations would help establish that Van Til is correctly characterizing Aquinas\u2019s views, but the sparsity of citations should not significantly affect understanding the argument that Van Til makes against Aquinas, yet Fesko can\u2019t even get that right. \u00a0Van Til often writes about Aquinas\u2019s views without providing specific citation from Aquinas, but sometimes he references an earlier work where he provides those citations.[28]<\/a>\u00a0 He shouldn\u2019t be required to provide detailed citation every time he addresses an issue that he has addressed previously.\u00a0 \u00a0Van Til extensively cites the works of \u00c9tienne Gilson, a Roman Catholic theologian who was Van Til’s contemporary.[29]<\/a>\u00a0 Did Gilson get Aquinas wrong?\u00a0 Or did get Van Til misunderstand Gilson?\u00a0 A full evaluation of Van Til\u2019s criticisms of Roman Catholicism would have to address those questions.<\/p>\n

    In the next post, I\u2019ll address Fesko\u2019s claim that Van Til\u2019s thinking was corrupted by idealist philosophy.<\/p>\n

    ___________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

    [1]<\/a>\u00a0 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles<\/em>, 1:3:2<\/p>\n

    [2]<\/a>\u00a0 Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea<\/em> (1936).<\/p>\n

    [3]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology<\/em>, p. 216.<\/p>\n

    [4]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em> (1955), pp. 41-42, 410-411; Van Til, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em>, pp. 76-77; Van Til, Common Grace and the Gospel<\/em>, pp. 63-64.<\/p>\n

    [5]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge<\/em> (Phillipsburg, NJ: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1969), p. 302.\u00a0\u00a0 Also see, Cornelius Van Til, The Intellectual Challenge of the Gospel<\/em> (Phillipsburg, N.J.:\u00a0 Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1980), p. 8.<\/p>\n

    [6]<\/a>\u00a0 Cornelius Van Til, The Protestant Doctrine of Scripture<\/em> (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1967), p. 19.<\/p>\n

    [7]<\/a>\u00a0 John Frame, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought <\/em>(Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1995), p. 183.\u00a0 See my essay, \u201cThe Scope and Limits of Van Til\u2019s Transcendental Argument:\u00a0 A Response to John Frame,\u201d http:\/\/www.christianciv.com\/The_Scope_and_Limits_of_VTAG.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    [8]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Defense of the Faith<\/em> (1955), p. 238.<\/p>\n

    [9]<\/a>\u00a0 Aristotle taught that the Unmoved Mover \u201ccauses\u201d motion in the world because the world loves, i.e. desires, the Unmoved Mover (Metaphysics XII, 7).\u00a0 The power of motion is in the world, not the Unmoved Mover.<\/p>\n

    [10]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, A Survey of Christian Epistemology<\/em>, p. 57.<\/p>\n

    [11]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge<\/em>, p. 170.<\/p>\n

    [12]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em>, p.11.<\/p>\n

    [13]<\/a>\u00a0 Van TIl, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em>, p. 9.<\/p>\n

    [14]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid., p. 96.<\/p>\n

    [15]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Case for Calvinism<\/em> (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1979), p. 57. Also see Van Til, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em>, 73-105, 217-219; and Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge<\/em>, 169-175. Arvin Vos defends Aquinas from the charges brought against him by Protestants, and Van Til in particular, in his book Aquinas, Calvin &Contemporary Protestant Thought: A Critique of Protestant Views on the Thought of Thomas Aquinas<\/em> (Washington, D.C.: Christian University Press, 1985). \u00a0However, Vos does not address Van Til\u2019s criticisms of Aquinas as I describe them here. \u00a0Vos says over and over that Aquinas\u2019s view is that nature and grace are complimentary, and he sees the only alternative as destroying nature in favor of grace (p. 144); but he never addresses Van Til\u2019s argument that the Aristotelian idea of a scale of being is inconsistent with the Biblical view of nature and grace.<\/p>\n

    [16]<\/a>\u00a0 Thomas Aquinas, On the Truth of the Catholic Faith <\/em>(Summa Contra Gentiles<\/em>) tr. by Anton C. Pegis, Vol. 2 (Garden City: Hanover House, 1955),96 (1:14.2).Van Til quotes this passage in A Christian Theory of Knowledge<\/em>, p. 169 and in his article \u201cNature and Scripture\u201d in The Infallible Word, Ed. By N.B. Stonehouse and Paul Woolley, 2nded. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Co., 2002), p. 288.<\/p>\n

    [17]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid.<\/p>\n

    [18]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology<\/em>, p. 116.<\/p>\n

    [19]<\/a>\u00a0 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica<\/em>, Part I, Question 12,Article 12.<\/p>\n

    [20]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em>, pp. 84, 95, 99.<\/p>\n

    [21]<\/a>\u00a0 Michael H. Warren, Jr., \u201cThe Scope and Limits of Van Til\u2019s Transcendental Argument: A Response to John Frame,\u201d http:\/\/www.christianciv.com\/The_Scope_and_Limits_of_VTAG.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    [22]<\/a>\u00a0 Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge<\/em>, p. 244 (emphasis in original), also see p. 213. \u00a0And see The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em>, pp. 98, 103; A Survey of Christian Epistemology<\/em>, p. 67;\u00a0 An Introduction to Systematic Theology<\/em>, p. 255; Who do You say that I am?<\/em>, pp. 47-48.<\/p>\n

    [23]<\/a>\u00a0 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica<\/em>, First Part of the Second Part, \u201cTreatise on Grace,\u201d Q. 109. Art. 2.<\/p>\n

    [24]<\/a>\u00a0 Ibid., First Part, Q. 94, Art. 4.<\/p>\n

    [25]<\/a>\u00a0 Van TIl, The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em>, p. 104.<\/p>\n

    [26]<\/a>\u00a0 Aquinas, Summa Theologica<\/em>, First Part, Q. 5, Art. 3.<\/p>\n

    [27]<\/a>\u00a0 Quoting Frame, Cornelius Van TIl<\/em>, p. 356.<\/p>\n

    [28]<\/a>\u00a0 As in Defense of the Faith<\/em> (1955, p. 256) and A Christian Theory of Knowledge <\/em>(p. 291), where he references his essay in The Infallible Word<\/em>, which includes citations (see pp. 288-90).<\/p>\n

    [29]<\/a>\u00a0 For example, An Introduction to Systematic Theology<\/em>, pp.216ff; Who Do You Say that I Am?<\/em>, pp. 41-44; The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em>, pp. 212-14; The Defense of the Faith<\/em> (1955), 149ff.\u00a0 Jacques Maritain is another Roman Catholic theologian he quotes extensively, e.g. The Reformed Pastor and Modern Thought<\/em>, pp. 206-12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    So what exactly is Van Til\u2019s beef with Aquinas?\u00a0 First, there is the issue of Aquinas\u2019s claims about Aristotle contradicting the biblical teaching about man\u2019s depravity.\u00a0\u00a0 That a pagan like Aristotle, who, according to the Bible, hates God, suppresses natural … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":429,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions\/429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christianciv.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}